Expert advice needed! MAC versus Windows laptop

Hi All,

I currently play on an iMAC G5 and it works great- but want to buy a laptop that I can use for SL and other things. Ive been told that the new MAC laptops work just as good in SL as a windows laptop. I also know Apple is releasing some new products this week.

If you were going to buy a laptop for gaming- and were a big MAC fan...
What would you recommend? I dont want to be disappointed, or suffer performance issues but would always rather buy an Apple product when I can. If I buy a MAC laptop, what do I need in order to get TOP performance?

Thanks!
Val

I plan to buy the last PowerBook after I sell one of my trucks. The FX Go5200 should do well. But as a general rule of thumb NEVER BUY ANY MAC PRODUCT BEFORE AN ANNOUNCEMENT! Which give you about a 30 day window I believe.

Generally speaking if you want performance desktops are better, cheaper and more upgradeable, all of which being important for a gaming computer. The Intel Macs, laptops included seem to be on par with the Windows ones for SL but really I would say stick with desktops for gaming and SL. Then as noted wait until after the announcement and try to see the effects of it before buying a new Mac.

I find too many are getting portable computers, phones and so on more because it's the trend everyone is following than because they actually need one. Often enough people seem to be using their laptops on the desk of their home/appartment almost exclusively then if they use it elsewhere at all it's only for the most basic of functions (word processing apps and the like) and wasn't worth the expense of getting a laptop just for that.

It's generally true that desktops are more powerful per dollar spent than laptops. Having said that, I'm in SL using a MacBook Pro 2GHz processor which all graphics features except local lighting and draw distance turned up to maximum. I usually get 15-70 fps (yes, 70)except in very crowded areas such as the Welcome Area (where it can go as low as 5fps for the first coupla minutes as everything loads up.)

In addition, since the Macbook (and the iMac withthe same Intel processor) are dual core, it means I can run other apps simultaneously with no hit to sl performance.

If you are lucky enough to have a mac store near you visit it.

They where nice enough to let me install SL and fire it up on TWO machines to see which would run SL "well enough" for me.

I think you should get an intel laptop and download the universal of SL and see how that runs.

BTW dont' IM the Mac user group and say "OMG I'm at the mac store what should I get", unless you want to be mistaken for a bizillionaire who can AFFORD the best stuff LOL.

Windows has usually had the edge on gaming but that is changing with the intel move.
I'm a game tester and now that we are doing intel side-by-side it looks like Mac is finally going to be a great gaming platform again as far as number crunching.

Easy choice, MacBook Pro. Get the one with 256Mb of Graphics RAM. A bigger hard drive (so you can run Windows and Mac OS). Install boot camp and have fun.

As an FYI the Universal Binary build of SL runs great I get very nice frame rates 30 - 40 on my iMac.

I know this machine probably isn't in the wild yet, but does anybody know if the graphics will handle SL at all? Here's the spec:



I'm sure it wouldn't be as nice as the MacBook Pro, but for like a grand less it's an appealing machine.

http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html

Thanks,
Bo

I was seriously considering reaching for my credit card when I noticed the Intel graphics. Now I am not sure what to do.

If you're buying it for SL, I've had two different Apple Stores let me run it as a test. (The fact that there's nothing to install makes it even easier! I love apps that run without an installer!) I brought it in on a USB key, but had to download a new copy in one case. I am definitely drooling over the 17" MacBook Pro now, but am really curious to see it running on the new MacBook, with the integrated video. I saw that someone was getting reasonable results on a PC with integrated video, so it might be ok. Only by running SL can we know for sure, though.

I guess that is what I will do. I am a couple of hours away from the nearest Apple Store. I feel the need for a roadtrip really soon now (like as soon as I am sure they have them in the store).

If you're serious about games, besides SL, look at the pro. But otherwise the Macbook is really a fantastic choice. Great bang for the buck. In general Macs are very safe choices for Windows switchers since they're intel based and you can dual boot for games. Or run virtualization for "everything else." Although most switchers (myself included, though it's been 4 years now) find that they stop using Windows right away once they switch. The Mac is really that much better.

Cheers,
Skip

ive talked to a few people who have played SL on the intel Mac Mini. They said it actually runs perfectly playable. It has the same GMA950 video.

I made it over to the Apple store just before they closed. I downloaded the universal binary and fired it up. The good news is it seemed to run fine - bad news is I didn't get any objective data on it. Sorry, I was in a hurry.

I went over to Waterhead figuring if it could handle that it was ok and it did just fine. I've only played on Windows machines, so I can't compare to another Mac, but it was absolutely playable. (Haven't bothered trying to fire up SL on my G4 'Yikes' machine.) Waterhead rendered as fast as I've ever seen it anyway.

Otherwise the machines seemed really nice. The keyboard has a very nice feel. They have a new glossy coating on the screen that I liked, but I understand that some people don't. It tends to make the colors look richer. The thing does seem to run very hot - the bottoms were plenty toasty.

It'd be pretty compelling and I'd probably have bought one if they had the mid-level version in stock.

-Bo

Hrm, the potential problem with the integrated graphics is that LL doesn't plan to maintain support for them, if they can make a feature work on an integrated graphics chip then I suspect they will (unless it's a huge compromise to make), but there's always the risk that something new will break support with an integrated graphics chip!
I hope not personally, it wouldn't seem like a good move to make, but I'm not sure I'd take that chance!

If I get a MacBook I'll be waiting to see what the next version brings, maybe a NVidia or ATI graphics card, and hopefully black on all models

However, I dunno what kind of support for OpenGL these chips have, OS X uses OpenGL heavily, and support for it is one of the important things, if Apple has control of the drivers for the integrated GPU then it might not be so bad, as Apple wouldn't want to lose their impeccable OpenGL support.